Monte Ozarka
TNPer
Lecture 2: Issues--Everyone's got 'em
So. Now that we've slogged through the menus of the NS site, let's get to the stuff that actually affect your nation's stats.
Besides changing regions and messing about with text fields on the Settings page, your nation changes in two ways: population and UN categories. However, you have no control over your population; it will continue to grow, no matter what other gameplay or roleplay actions you take.
What you do control are the issues. The issues affect your UN categories, and your UN categories are only affected by your issue and UN decisions. In short, if you're not part of the UN and you just leave your issues to rot, your UN category will never change. This can be handy if you plan on roleplaying with your nation, as it basically means that you can spend the time to mold your nation to your exact specifications and just lock those stats in by doing nothing. On the flip side, if you want your nation to encounter larger change in a shorter period of time, it would be beneficial to put your nation on two issues per day.
So...What can I do?
Now, we get to the problem of how each decision on an issue affects your nation. This being NationStates, the mods and admins are very tightlipped about how each issue is calculated. However, the issues are pretty intuitive. If one position for an issue would result in greater personal freedom, you can pretty much count on it raising your UN category score for Civil Rights. If one option would result in mass deforestation for the sake of profits, you can count on it raising your Economy score, as well as lowering the percentage of your budget that you devote to the Environment (I'll explain below). It might also cause the National Description to say something about your national animal becoming endangered. Is it budget time? Naturally, lowering taxes would increase your Economy score.
Finally, there's an option for issues that newbies to the game all-too-often ignore: dismissing the issue. Unlike real life, where putting off the problem typically only exacerbates it, dismissing the issue in NS pretty much lets you ignore it as if the issue never existed in the first place. By dismissing the issue, your nation will not change or suffer any adverse (or positive) effects.
As a sidenote... Not only do your decisions affect your UN category and government budget, it can also affect what type of nation the game labels you as, as well as what the text says in your National Description. (See link at bottom for more info.)
The XML page--a very handy tool
But wait..."the environment"? What?
Here. We're going to take a field trip.
Some final bits
Just some details that probably won't concern you all that much right now...
First of all, when you're a new nation, you'll be going through a cache of the original 30 issues. Once your nation has grown a bit (somewhere along the lines of a week or two), the game will begin to draw upon the entire load of 210 issues to send to you (dependent on national characteristics).
Second of all, once you hit 500 million population, you'll be able to submit issues to the game. The admins and their special helpers will look them over every so often (or unoften, as the case may be), and if they like it, they'll add it to the game...eventually.
For more information on issues, I suggest that you enroll in Emperor Matthuis' course A06 Issues, what are they?
Here are some helpful links:
Thank god that was not as lengthy as the first lecture. If you guys would like examples, I'd be happy to oblige. Now, as for today's optional assignment...
I want you to make a note of your XML page's stats under the "GOVT" heading, as well as your UN categories and government type. Make your decision on today's issue(s), and record them. After a day, check on your UN categories, government type, and XML page, and give us a summary of what you did and how that affected your nation.
So. Now that we've slogged through the menus of the NS site, let's get to the stuff that actually affect your nation's stats.
Besides changing regions and messing about with text fields on the Settings page, your nation changes in two ways: population and UN categories. However, you have no control over your population; it will continue to grow, no matter what other gameplay or roleplay actions you take.
What you do control are the issues. The issues affect your UN categories, and your UN categories are only affected by your issue and UN decisions. In short, if you're not part of the UN and you just leave your issues to rot, your UN category will never change. This can be handy if you plan on roleplaying with your nation, as it basically means that you can spend the time to mold your nation to your exact specifications and just lock those stats in by doing nothing. On the flip side, if you want your nation to encounter larger change in a shorter period of time, it would be beneficial to put your nation on two issues per day.
So...What can I do?
Now, we get to the problem of how each decision on an issue affects your nation. This being NationStates, the mods and admins are very tightlipped about how each issue is calculated. However, the issues are pretty intuitive. If one position for an issue would result in greater personal freedom, you can pretty much count on it raising your UN category score for Civil Rights. If one option would result in mass deforestation for the sake of profits, you can count on it raising your Economy score, as well as lowering the percentage of your budget that you devote to the Environment (I'll explain below). It might also cause the National Description to say something about your national animal becoming endangered. Is it budget time? Naturally, lowering taxes would increase your Economy score.
Finally, there's an option for issues that newbies to the game all-too-often ignore: dismissing the issue. Unlike real life, where putting off the problem typically only exacerbates it, dismissing the issue in NS pretty much lets you ignore it as if the issue never existed in the first place. By dismissing the issue, your nation will not change or suffer any adverse (or positive) effects.
As a sidenote... Not only do your decisions affect your UN category and government budget, it can also affect what type of nation the game labels you as, as well as what the text says in your National Description. (See link at bottom for more info.)
The XML page--a very handy tool
But wait..."the environment"? What?
Here. We're going to take a field trip.
- Pull up NationStates.
- Copy this link into your browser: http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/nation...gi/nation=xxxxx
- Replace those five x's at the end with your nation's name. (Substitute underscores for spaces, i.e. http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/nation...n=Monte_Ozarka)
- Click enter!
Some final bits
Just some details that probably won't concern you all that much right now...
First of all, when you're a new nation, you'll be going through a cache of the original 30 issues. Once your nation has grown a bit (somewhere along the lines of a week or two), the game will begin to draw upon the entire load of 210 issues to send to you (dependent on national characteristics).
Second of all, once you hit 500 million population, you'll be able to submit issues to the game. The admins and their special helpers will look them over every so often (or unoften, as the case may be), and if they like it, they'll add it to the game...eventually.
For more information on issues, I suggest that you enroll in Emperor Matthuis' course A06 Issues, what are they?
Here are some helpful links:
- Issues FAQ on the NS Jolt forums
- A listing of all the issues in-game (SPOILERS)
- List of rankings for UN categories
- People who are econ-savvy made various calculators for your nation. This is the Sunset calculator and will tell you more than you ever cared to know about your nation.
Thank god that was not as lengthy as the first lecture. If you guys would like examples, I'd be happy to oblige. Now, as for today's optional assignment...
I want you to make a note of your XML page's stats under the "GOVT" heading, as well as your UN categories and government type. Make your decision on today's issue(s), and record them. After a day, check on your UN categories, government type, and XML page, and give us a summary of what you did and how that affected your nation.
